Communication Tips for Game Producers

Introduction

Producers
come in many shapes and sizes, with a wide range of abilities and
experience, but strong communication skills are essential for any
producer who plans to create a top quality game.

The
producer is considered the “mouthpiece” of the project and is expected
to daily communicate project status to everyone involved in the project
(the “stakeholders”). With all the different stakeholders on a project
hammering the producer for answers, having some simple proven processes
to follow can seriously minimize the number of communication issues
that occur.

The producer must also be able to
clearly explain the needs of the project to the development team and to
the external stakeholders on the project. Knowing how to get the right
information, to the right people, in a quick and efficient manner, will
minimize miscommunication and insure a fun project.

Different Types of Producers

There
are many types of producers, so this article will not try to define
what the “perfect” producer is. There is no one size fits all in this
industry; with games ranging from GBA ports, to $20 million
multi-platform projects there is no typical game project.

This
article focuses on the “top producer”: this is the producer who is
running the development team and is responsible for the status of the
project. This can range from an Assistant producer running a secondary
SKU, to an Executive Producer on a Next Gen game; either way, the top
producer is the producer directly responsible for communicating the
status of the project to all the stakeholders.

A
producer must have many skills in order to manage a team of creative
people and create a great game on time and budget. Producers should be
good communicators, both verbal, and written. Producers should also be
gamers and understand how to tell the difference between fun and
not-fun. This is such an important skill, and one that is hard to gauge
as it is very subjective.

Producers also need to
know how to deal with conflict. Games are a passionate endeavor and
passion causes drama and conflict even on the smallest issues. A good
producer knows how to encourage the team to take the passion out of
problems and funnel that passion towards finding solutions.

There
are many more skills that a producer must posses, but the focus of this
article is on communication and how that impacts the success of the
game.